


Just A Cut

by MelinyaValerian



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Sand Siblings-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 02:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4462187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelinyaValerian/pseuds/MelinyaValerian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just a stupid question from Gaara, and he really shouldn't get too upset about it: “Why do you always wear the face paint?”<br/>"'Cause father dearest hated it, eh?", Kankurou replies quickly, but that does not even begin to cover the truths. And the worst thing is, he knows it doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Cut

**Author's Note:**

> Set shortly after the Konoha Invasion.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and the Sand-Siblings.  
> If I would, they would get more screentime.
> 
> Rated T for Kankurou's (probably rather harmless, but better stay safe) swearing.

It's peaceful, he thinks, oddly peaceful. Not especially more silent than usual, it has always been silent. A threatening calm, the air not just hot because of the sun, but thick with unspoken threats, fears and death glares. Just eyes glaring daggers at each other, chakra sent to and stored in his fingertips, always ready to release it.  
But since some weeks, it's peaceful. No death glares, no threats. But still fear, even if he doesn't like it now. Old habits die hard, they say, and he is still on full guard when he enters the room.  
Gaara is there, as always. Sitting at his usual place, starring at his plate and the half-eaten food thereon. His eyes dart shortly towards the door when Kankurou enters, and then they go back to his plate. Blank.  
  
_Better than the daggers_ , he thinks, though the impassive stare Gaara gives is hardly any more comfortable. But right now, tentative peace is preferable to everything else.  
“Mornin'”, he mutters, and doesn't know why. It's not as if Gaara gives a shit on politeness. He has never answered before, not even nodded.  
He picks up his breakfast where the housekeeper has placed it the evening before, somehow thankful that the old lady still comes, even with her employer dead. It's the first time the thought of his father crosses his mind for the day, and it makes his stomach twist. He he fights back the thoughts in his mind, and sits down opposite to Gaara, his stomach still twisting. He hates to think of that man.  
And he hates it that Gaara's eyes follow him through his breakfast. He does it everyday since some weeks, and it gives Kankurou the creeps. He doesn't know exactly why, maybe because Gaara never eats himself as long as other people are in the room. Maybe because he hates feeling watched. Right now, he tries to be positive. At least it doesn't scare him out of his wits completely anymore.  
But still, the silence grows thicker and thicker with every minute passing by and every word not said.  
  
Gaara never says anything.  
Kankurou never knows what to say, even if he wants to.  
  
So it comes as a real surprise when a monotonous, hardly used voice cuts the thickness of the silence when he is done eating and gets his plates to the sink. “Why do you always wear the face paint?”  
Kankurou nearly drops the plates in surprise, catches them last-second with a chakra threat. He is confused, since when does Gaara speak? Even ask questions? His eyes dart towards the younger boy, he has still not moved. His eyes are still blank, but they stare at him now. Not the death stare, but still it's a creepy stare. Unmoved, unemotional. And the question? Out of nowhere, blatant, blunt to say the least. Why does he ask it? Why now? What for? Kankurou wants to find a reason behind it while he stares at Gaara now the way the younger boy stares at him.  
_Why do you ask?_ , he wants to say, he genuinely wants to know.  
“'Cause father dearest hated it, eh?”, he says instead, sounding harsher and more final than he has intended, even more so because his voice sounds more like a croaking toad at the moment. He thinks about apologising for it, but never does. Instead, he roughly nods to Gaara, mutters a “See ya.” and leaves the room quickly.  
  
But the question doesn't leave as quickly. It stays, an unwanted guest rotating through his mind. He tries to ignore it as he passes the corridors of the palace to his room. He has answered, and he has not lied. Their father hated the paint. Even more so when it was smudgy and a little dirty because Kankurou conveniently forgot to clean his face in the evening. It drove him nuts, and Kankurou relished it. But however true, their father is dead, even buried already. So if it is his only reason, it has outlived its validity. But there is another reason, he knows it. But he knows as well that he has made himself forget that reason years ago, the day he first used the purple paint.  
_I could take it off now_ , he thinks suddenly, as he sees his reflection in the mirror he has installed in his room. His paint is smudgy again, no sharp edges and corners, but fading, blurry lines. It looks strange without his fighting attire, it doesn't fit his messy hair, the simple tunic he wears and his ungloved hands. Usually, he would clean it up now, repaint the lines without erasing them. Then, he would take on his fighting attire, and all would be as usual again.  
But today, maybe because Gaara's question still rotates through his mind, he takes a piece of cloth and the cleaner, and rubs the lines away completely. It takes time, and his face is reddened after the process. Some of the lines have been persistent, and he's had to apply force to get them off his face. He usually never cleans his face completely. If he needs to renew a line, he renews it. But only one line at a time. Never all at once. He also has never changed the pattern. Six years, same pattern.  
  
He stares into the mirror as the red slowly fades. He doesn't know what to expect, and scolds himself for being so stupid as to think that it would answer the still looming question in his head. It wouldn't make him remember. Because he doesn't want to remember, or does he? A thought gnaws on him, a thought that without the paint, he feels odd. Weak, he knows this feeling but it embarrasses him. He always says he is strong. Laughs at those who say otherwise, maybe threatens them. He never wants to believe.  
He scowls, but it doesn't look so threatening now. The hair fits the face now, as does the tunic. A simple face, not at all remarkable, and so easy to read. He remembers his father, scolding him for this very fact. _Too easy to read, no composure, too emotional_ , rotate the words in his head, in a harsh, low voice that belonged to his father. His stomach twists again, and anger boils up.  
That man. How he hates him. Nothing he has ever done has been right. Nothing. Whatever he has done to please his omnipresent, ever-so-perfect father, it has never resulted in praise. Only in a listing of all his failures. _Too emotional_ , it screams inside his head again. _Too easy to enrage. Too rebellious, disobedient. No true shinobi_ , his own voice adds, and he is disgusted by how much it sounds like his father's.  
Now that he looks closer, it isn't only the voice. His face, so unusual to him without the paint, begins to look like a younger version of his father's as well. He hasn't seen it in a clean state since... he cannot even remember. Seen it, yes, maybe some months ago. But looked at it? Not once in six years. He can't remember it that way, if he remembers it at all. It's like his father stares back, not him, he isn't himself without the lines.  
  
His hand reaches out for the paint on the table, unwilling, and maybe unable to stand it any longer. But something makes him stop. He knows he will regret it, but he looks into the mirror again, even closer than before. Maybe he hopes that he won't see his father again. But he is disappointed. It's too infuriating, he can't see it as his face, just as a miniature version of his father's. Everything, from his eyes to his chin reminds him of that man, and the anger boils up stronger, and mixes with despair. He isn't so stupid as Temari wants him to believe sometimes in their more hostile moments. He knows what will happen to him, the croaking toad that is his voice right now is proof enough. Not that he wants to stay a child. But he doesn't want to grow into a man that looks exactly like the man he wants to forget and cancel from his life. He wants his own face, and he feels embarrassed by the thought. He has erased the lines on his own, maybe THAT has been his face. Without it, he is naked and weak, just not remarkable; too easy to read and too easy to bring to despair. But he still can't reach out to the paint, he still can't move his hand. Frustration takes over the despair, and suddenly he knows again why he has once, six years ago, started to look like someone else.  
  
Because he has wanted to be someone else.  
  
Someone who is not related to that terrible man that would never allow him to be himself. Someone who isn't related to the demon container. Or even if that someone would be related, that someone wouldn't care. That someone would be strong enough to not care. And he has wanted to be strong, strong enough to not be scared and hurt by his brother. Strong enough to ignore that his sister became colder, and their friendly teasing aggressive. Strong enough to stand that his father, though never truly only their father, became more and more distant, and more and more only the Kazekage; and they only his soldiers. His puppets. Maybe he has hoped that the lines would distort how he felt, that from the day Gaara moved in with them he has had the feeling that his family, though never truly whole and intact, became only a formality.  
  
But someone who is strong won't care.  
Someone who is strong won't need them.  
  
And to be strong, he has needed to be unreadable. Or scary. Or both.  
And for six years, he has believed and hoped that his paint would make him strong, uncaring, independent.  
But what now?  
Now the demon container that is his brother tries to be nice. Now the ice figure that has been his sister long years ago tries to be caring. Now the Kazekage who has pretended to be their father is dead. And the boy who has pretended to be a puppet master and nothing more, proud and cunning and independent feels that something within him breaks apart.  
It has never gotten him far, and he knows it. Despite all his attitude, deep within him he has always cared. He has always feared. For his own skin, he has told himself, and maybe for Temari's. But not for Gaara. Though he isn't so sure anymore.  
He remembers being a child again, not older than four or five years, asking, begging his father to be allowed to see his brother. When he wasn't, he tried to sneak into Yashamaru's home, unsuccessful. His tries stopped, but never the wish to see his brother. Until six years ago, when the day finally came. From that day on, Gaara scared him. From that day on, Gaara made him angry. How could someone be so cold, so uncaring? Killing without regret, on a nearly daily basis?  
He laughs bitterly at the thought. Hasn't he done the same? Hasn't Temari? They both, he sees it now, both have stopped to care about killing once. After time, they have even stopped to care for his killings. As long as their skins have been save, they have fought their daily wars. Just so.  
_But now, now all is different_ , he thinks. All is peaceful, for once. For a lack of better word Gaara seemed truly docile at the moment, trying to be in control of the demon, rather than the other way round. And that terrible idiot who made his own son contain a demon is dead.  
Despair changes into anger again, and he asks himself how a father can do that to a child. Why it has never, not in six years, occurred to him that beside all his fear, and all his growing anger at Gaara, their father has been the one who created the monster.  
Maybe it isn't even Gaara's fault, maybe it's their father again who is to blame. It has hardly been Gaara's own decision to become a Jinchuuriki. He doesn't know if it's enough to forgive, but it is... a soothing thought, somehow. Sure, it doesn't make Gaara controllable. But it makes Gaara... a human being, somewhere beyond Shukaku. Maybe it has hurt Gaara, to kill all those people. But maybe, Shukaku hasn't cared. Maybe Gaara has been innocent, tainted by the ambition of his father. But innocence, he knows it all too well, never lasts. It breaks all too easy if someone spoils it. But what is innocence for a price to pay if the reward is power?  
Damn his bloody father and his idiot ambition. Despair and anger mix into hate, stronger than he has ever felt it before. How long will it be until the last traces of their father will vanish from their lives? How long will it be until they will find their peace? Until they forget, and the Kazekage they all have the misfortune to call their father will be but a bad memory?  
His eyes meet the mirror again, and something acidic and bitter shoots through his stomach. The answer is so simple.  
  
Never.  
  
_It won't change, now will it_ , he thinks. Never, he won't be able to forget, and neither will Gaara; the man will be there forever, haunting them. Just a look in the mirror will be enough, and time won't heal, no, time will only make it worse. Now, they are just nasty similarities, because even if he feels so much older sometimes, he technically is still half a child, and a child can only look so much like a fully grown adult. But in some years... maybe – no, he knows his luck; most likely – it will be equalities.  
Anger and frustration free his hand, but he doesn't grab the paint. He clenches his hand into a fist, and smashes the mirror. Frustration unloads on the glassy surface. It breaks with a shattering sound, and thousands of glass pieces fall to the floor.  
He doesn't notice that he follows them and sinks to his knees. He doesn't notice that his hand bleeds. What is this, this stupid weakness he feels. His father is dead, DEAD. He just needs to apply the paint, and he won't see the man again. Not ever, if he doesn't want to.  
But what does the paint make him? He knows it, it gnaws on him and he fears it. He doesn't want to be that again; that uncaring, that... angry at others and at himself. But what is he without? A stupid eight year old boy, who found himself crying the night his uncle died and decided it was shameful and needed to be changed.  
_How pathetic_ , he thinks about himself as he notices that he cries again. Without a sound, just tears rolling down his cheeks. He is going to be fifteen in a matter of months, too old to cry like a little child. He hasn't cried the day they've told him their father died. And now he does. Just because he has taken off that blasted paint. _Stupid Gaara and his idiot question_ , he curses in his head.  
  
“Why do you always wear the face paint?”, Gaara's voice sounds in his head.  
“Because it makes me who I am.”  
  
Without it, he is hollow, empty, tired from running to where he never wanted to be. He knows it, deep inside himself he knows it. He has forgotten about the boy he has been, about his good sides, if there ever have been any; if there has ever been more than paint, black clothes, puppets and a self-sufficient snarl. And without the paint, how can he be what he has been only some weeks ago with such obviousness that he had believed it true? With the paint he can at least pretend to be strong, even if he isn't.  
  
Even if he never has been.  
  
“Crybaby”, a voice comes from he door. But it is no hostile teasing, it sounds rather... sympathetic to him, though he hears it only slightly. He doesn't want to see her.  
“Buzz off!”, he barks back like he always does, but he hears steps coming closer.  
“Later”, she replies, calm and cool, as she sits down next to him, carefully avoiding the shards. He doesn't scare her away like usual, and it surprises him. “You're bleeding, idiot”, she says, and still she misses to sound aggressive.  
“Noticed that much”, he manages to bite back. But he lets her take his hand and look at it. She pulls out a shard, and he doesn't flinch. He doesn't even feel the pain.  
“You have to see a healer”, she says, he doesn't answer. He hears her groan at the missing reply, but she still doesn't let go of his hand.  
He avoids her eyes, keeps staring at the broken mirror on the floor, though not into the shards. She sighs again, and suddenly she puts a hand on his chin and turns his head around to face her. She glares, he glares back. But then, her eyes grow soft. Softer than he has seen them in the last years, and his anger at her unwelcome intruding seems to vanish. He has not seen her like this in years. Six years, to be exact.  
“We'll do it, I'm sure”, she says, and he thinks she sounds as if to convince herself she isn't telling lies. “We'll rebuild. Everything.”  
“How”, he gives back, his voice for once free of aggression. _She looks vulnerable_ , he thinks, and something within him wants to make her better and tell her everything is going to be alright. Just that he doesn't believe it himself, and he can't lie. He is always so easy to read if he tries to. “There's nothing left.”  
She sighs again, sad this time, and lets his hand go. “You know... even if we feel hollow, at least it... at least it hurts. That is still a feeling. We're not completely...”  
“Numb.”  
For a moment, they say nothing. _So she feels it, too_ , he thinks. Yes, she looks vulnerable. Like the little girl she hasn't been in years, like the little girl who has always taken care the wounded knees of her rowdy younger brother. And it makes him glad, though he doesn't know why.  
Maybe because he is not alone, for once. He has never wanted to be alone. He has always loved his family. At least Temari, and maybe... no certainly. Even Gaara. Maybe it has hurt that much because he has still loved Gaara, somehow, even in the years he has feared him more than anything else. Maybe he feels so betrayed by his father because he loves him. Maybe it feels even more painful because he fears that their father, if he has ever loved any of them, has stopped to love them long, long years ago.  
It is past now, and because Temari is there next to him, for the first time in weeks it feels as if he understands what that means. Temari is here, acting against her once so adamant believe that only the strong survive, and that only those who can live alone are strong. She is here because of him, he feels it. Because she cares, still or again, what does it matter. Maybe, she is sick of her cold loneliness, just like he is sick of his false strength and nonchalance. And maybe, they can leave it behind. If she can change, then maybe he can, as well. If he doesn't want to be what he has been, he doesn't have to.  
His eyes squint at the mirror pieces, and now without hesitation he takes a large one, holds it up with his still bleeding hand and looks at it, even stares into it.  
Even if he's still unsure what that means, the teenager who stares back is him and only him. And even if that teenager has a remarkable resemblance to his father, he is a person of his own. He is himself, not fully empty; he is still feeling. And at least he does know who he doesn't want to be anymore. Maybe it is not much. But maybe, it is enough for now.  
Determination grows out of despair and frustration sometimes, and it does now for him. He won't give up just yet. He will try.  
“What are you doing?”, Temari cries, and he snaps out of his thoughts to see that he clutches the shard too firmly; the sharp edges already cut into his hand. “You're already bleeding, stupid!”  
He chuckles sadly, and lets the piece go and stares at his hand. “See a healer!”, Temari orders.  
But he doesn't.  
He cleans the wound on his own and bandages it. Then, he removes the shards from his room together with the broken mirror.  
  
Lunchtime comes.  
Gaara is there, as always in the last weeks. He sits alone before his plates, and stops eating the moment Kankurou and Temari enter, his eyes dart towards the elder boy, and widen slightly at the unpainted face. Noticing the gaze, Kankurou thinks of something to say, a bit nervous, though willing to make a step to be nicer than in the morning. “I... think I need a new pattern. Had the old one for too long, and it starts gettin' boring”, he says finally, and wonders when his voice will finally stop sounding like a dying animal. From the corner of his eyes, he sees the suspicion of a smile move across his sister's face.  
“What have you done to your hand?”, Gaara asks, and Kankurou eyes him again. Has there been... concern in his voice? A tiny hint, nearly unnoticeable? Was that the reason for his odd questions? Honest concern and interest? He remembers his own words after Gaara's first apology. “It's alright”, he has said. And he has meant it, though he hasn't understood why.  
The answer seems simple now. Maybe because after all obstacles, they are still brothers. Gaara is his brother, and it is Gaara who asks, because they have both missed twelve years of being just brothers; not unwilling team-mates or even enemies. Maybe he can't stop to fear just yet, maybe the fear is too deeply sunken into him that it won't go away as easy. But certainly he can direct his fear towards Shukaku, and away from his little brother.  
He looks at his hand, tightly bandaged. It will leave a scar, he is sure. He hopes for it. Maybe in the future, he will need a reminder one day or the other. “Listen Gaara”, he adds, and takes a deep breath. He owes Gaara something. “Sorry for being rude in the morning, eh? It's just... I can't answer that question about the paint right now. Maybe in a bit. But if... if there's something else, go ahead and ask.” _Not so difficult_ , he thinks, and a small smirk manifests in his face. “And about that here”, he waves his bandaged hand slightly, and the smirk grows in to a grin. “It's nothing. I just made a cut.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's rather unlikely that all three siblings are at home at the same time and Kankurou has enough time to stare into a mirror the whole forenoon; because of shinobi business and work to do and such things. Let's imagine for now they have a day off, or it's Sunday, or they are on vacation...
> 
> The tense is intentional, by the way. I've experimented with writing in present in this story and didn't want to change it afterwards. I think it has something, even if it sounds a bit odd (English is not my first language, so it may be just me feeling this way).


End file.
